🧭 WoR Newsletter - GitHub Copilot Review, Develop our Soft Skills, Adopt Elixir...
A bimonthly newsletter about Ruby on Rails and other web news
In this issue we look into GitHub Copilot, we ask ourselves what makes a good technical interview, what is WebAssembly, how to develop our soft skills, and how to adopt new technologies with our team…
🌐 You can find the french version here (version française)
🎉 New translation: you can find the italian verion here (versione italiana)Ruby and Rails News 🛤
In the past issue, we talked about the launch of GitHub Copilot, an AI helping developers to code.
This tool received several critical reviews and we have selected this one from Melissa Elliott: Risk Assessment of GitHub Copilot.
One recurrent criticism was on the fact that GitHub Copilot is trained with code under the GPL license, which states that code can be used only under certain conditions. If you want to know more about open source licenses, Gina Häußge just published a recap on the subject: A dev’s guide to open source software licensing.
🗞️ Ecosystem News
The last WNB.rb meetup recordings are online:
Maple Ong published the repo Minimal Ruby Project, which can be a good starter repo for a technical interview or for katas
News from Rails 7: Adding support for cross-cluster associations to Rails 7 by Eileen M. Uchitelle
RubyConf (happening in November 2021) announced:
You can now apply for a scholarship or mentorship, note that scholars will receive a free ticket for the conference.
The committee will now refuse to organize the conference in states having transphobic or anti LGBTQIA+ laws and we welcome this decision
Ruby Tip 💎
Array#zip The #zip method converts arguments into an array in which the elements of self are merged with the elements of each corresponding argument. It generates a sequence of arrays.
If an argument size is smaller than the initial array size, the arrays in the sequence will receive nil values.
➡️ Zip method
On the Web 🕸️
🧭 What Can We Expect during a Technical Interview?
There are multiple methods: whiteboard, take-home assignment, questions about past experiences… Alan Johnson challenges these usual tests and shares his experience with behavioral interviews. A useful article to review how we can practice recruitment and understand how interviews work to prepare to better prepare ourselves for them!
➡️ We’re Hiring Engineers All Wrong. Here’s How HuffPost Evolved - Alan Johnson
🧢 From Individual Contributor to Manager, to Individual Contributor Again
As a developer, it is possible to evolve as a manager and keep coding, but not at the same time. Charity Majors named this the “Engineer/Manager Pendulum” to explain how it can be healthy to swing back and forth between these two very different positions. In her article, Gemma Barlow lists a series of prudent thoughts for those who want to switch back from management to individual contributors.
➡️ From individual contributor to manager, and back again - Gemma Barlow
🤝 The Soft Skills We Need to Evolve as a Team and in our Company
We already shared the Career Ladder from Sarah Drasner, where she describes the necessary skills for every level of the ladder. Dropbox also shared their Career Framework recently. In both cases, we couldn’t help but notice that to evolve as a developer, soft skills are required. Amarachi Amaechi’s article drops at the perfect time, highlighting these soft skills and giving us advice on how to develop them!
➡️ Why You Need Soft Skills as a Software Developer - Amarachi Amaechi
Some Code 💻
🧱 What the heck is WebAssembly?
A lot of well-known platforms use WebAssembly, so there might be something about it that should pique our interest, right? Mary Branscombe reviews its advantages on security and speed and explains its other important assets. Some of us saw WebAssembly as a Javascript substitute or a new Flash, but Mary Branscombe is not fooled — She sees it as a new type of collaborator.
➡️ What Is WebAssembly — and Why Are You Hearing So Much About It? - Mary Branscombe
🌟 How to Adopt a New Stack in a Team?
Switching to another language or framework can’t be done overnight (unfortunately). And it’s also not something we decide lightly. Sophie DeBenedetto explains to us that this decision must be made according to the team’s knowledge and learning goals. She recounts the time when she and her team shipped a big project in 3 months built with a technology they didn’t master. (Spoiler: There is a happy ending!).
➡️ An Elixir Adoption Success Story - Sophie DeBenedetto
🎨 A Portfolio with Next.js
There are a lot of JavaScript frameworks and sometimes it is hard to know about them all. Next.js, which is based on React, has been around since 2016. We've seen a lot of developers adopt it, so we wanted to show you what this is about!In this article, Delba de Oliveira presents what stack she used to build her blog: Next.js for the framework, MDX for the articles files, Tailwind for the CSS framework, TypeScript for the app, Prisma as a database, and finally Vercel to deploy. We loved the use of the JS library RoughNotation to make her homepage standout !
➡️ How I Built My Site with Next.js - Delba de Oliveira
Fun 🎉
🐍 Nokia 3310 Nostalgia
Is there a liberating feeling behind installing a snake eating our Github contributions? There are sweat and tears behind some of them, so does it count as emotional eating? Enough with the philosophical questions — let’s learn about GitHub Actions! If you don’t know them, it’s a good way to discover them.
➡️ How to enable GitHub Actions on your Profile README for a snake-eating contribution graph 🐍 - Michelle Mannering
Replay 📽
🧮 Functional Programming Fun(damentals)
During her presentation, Dominika Malinowska gives us a tour of functional programming. She explains the principles, how to apply them in our favorite language, and why we should use it in our future projects.
➡️ Functional Programming Fun(damentals)- Dominika Malinowska
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Editors: Camille and Juliette
Translators: Aurelie and Meg